All posts by Michael Perry
Below are all of Michael Perry's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Jim Taylor
What you are now reporting is different to that suggested in your initial posting on this problem.
The HD muxs usually do not carry the local services but a subset of the operator's main services at their choice. That means that in several areas of the country viewers do not get their local news, for example, but a service decided by the operator. I do not have HD equipment so cannot check what region local news is radiated from Mendip on the HD mux, though Mendip is my primary source for SD services.
In general, the SD services are the 'local' ones for your area and you may well find the BBC1 West in SD in the 800s range of programme numbers. Probably worth scrolling down the EPG listing to find the SD version of BBC1 or ITV1 and checking what regional news they are providing.
Note that just turning an aerial is not always enough as transmitter frequencies are 'grouped' and your aerial should be one designed to work with that grouping otherwise the 'out of band' programmes may not be received at sufficient strength for satisfactory decoding.
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In my experience, people do not want to know anything about how the services they rely upon actually work. That it does is enough for most non-technical people. 'Techies' do like to know what is happening, how and why - so that includes many of us contributors to this website.
Most viewers of TV services, as an example, only want to switch on and view their selected programmes. How that happens is of little or no interest providing they can view in comfort. They get really annoyed by having to retune at all, let alone as often as has been the case with Freeview.
Many pupils leaving school, but not all, have a poor understanding of technical matters. They love the smartphone but don't care how it works.
So I believe there is considerable scope to improve training and education for everyone and we should be encouraging people to be more inquisitive about the technologies that run their lives. I still try to learn something new despite having a degree and frequently do MOOCs with organisations like FutureLearn, Open University, etc. It's generally free and there are many course aimed at different levels of 'learner'. We should help and ecourage more technical and scientific knowledge and a better understanding of how it, and other factors, apply in our daily lives.
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jb38
No problem, we both just want to help resolve Jim's apparent problem. I find sometimes that apparently 'random' ideas contain a potential solution, so feel free to think freely. (Pardon the pun!).
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Briantist
An 'odd' query, please? Why is it that if we add a final comment in brackets they always disappear and are not shown in the posting? It happens only with such bracketted comments at the very end of a posting and it always happens! Any bracketted comments within the body of the posting always appear as expected.
Do you know why, please?
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milikeyas daniel
As far as I know the satellite broadcast footprint does not cover Ethiopia. The chance of getting RAI via satellite is nil - unless someone can persuade them to add transmissions to a satllite that does provide a footprint over Ethiopia, fairly unlikely due to commercial considerations being unviable.
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Mr Vlad
You will not get UK Freeview services in Latvia, it's far too far away from the UK transmitters.
If Latvia has a Digital Terrestrial TV broadcasting service using the DVB-T or DVB-T2 systems then you may get some local Latvian programmes, but they will not be Freeview as that is UK only.
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David:
The signals may leave the transmission mast atabout the erp (effective radiated power) but the atmosphere affects different signals differently. So services on different muxes are affected differently.
If you signal strengths are high, as you state, you could be suffering, as Briantist suggests, from signal overload. That may be the problem with your ITV reception. Ideally the signal strengths should not exceed 80% but should be more than 50% to get a reliable service. The signal quality should be higher than 60% on most equipment for satisfactory reception.
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Liam & MikeB:
It is worth looking at OLED TVs as these have a better contrast ratio and the blacks really are black and not just darker than the rest of the display. The 'final credits test' is an excellent way of judging the clarity/sharpness of the display but you need to judge the colour content as well (I liked using the Test Card F but they do not transmit that these days!)
On screen size, don't go for one that is too big for comfort in your room and don't mount it so high that you are looking upwards to see it - that's bad for your neck! The ideal ergonomic height is with the top of the screen at or just above eye level when sitting normally for viewing.
As for distance, I personally prefer my seat 4 times the diagonal away from the screen but you do not want to be too close either.
I'm not in the sales business so can't suggest make/model as others may.
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Our Samsung fridge/freezer shows both temperatures at the same time - and it's not a 'smart' fridge/freezer either.
You can manage with the RJ45 unplugged for equipment that does not really need internet acceess, such as a fridge, washing machine, toaster, kettle, cooker, etc. A PC does rather rely on that access nowadays - but never used to. Several years ago we worked with 'dumb terminals' wired to the central main frame in the office, so we couild communicate electronically across the room - but never did as talking like real humans worked better! The cloud has recently been shown to have just as many risks as any other internet connected device. There are those who think it's fun to hack things you would not normally dream of being a target!
If it doesn't need to be internet cponnected, protect it and yourself by leaving the data plug out.
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Thursday 23 October 2014 8:25PM
Jim Taylor
It could be that your equipment has tuned to the Ridge Hill signals as they are lower in the frequency band than are those from Mendip. If you find on your TV how to show the signal strength screen it should show you which channel or frequency it is tuned to for the selected programme channel. BBC1 for example should be on Channel 49, 680 MHz for the Mendip BBC West service. Ridge Hill is on Channel 28, 530 MHz and that carries BBC1 West Midlands.
You could try retuning with the aerial unplugged for the first third of the scan or else you may need to manually tune with the aid of your TV set's User Manual.